Camera Printers Clovis NM

Ever wanted to print your own photographs with a glossy finish? Camera printers allow users to turn their home into their very own photo printing resource center. Read through the following articles to learn more about camera printers and find local companies and providers who can help you find what you’re looking for.

Photo Printers

Photo Printers

Make stunning prints that will last for generations with the newest photo inkjet technology

By Jon Canfield

It never has been easier to get prints at home that meet or exceed traditional lab prints. If you’re replacing an aging model, inkjet technology has made some big strides forward in the last few years, both in terms of ink formulations and the methods by which ink is placed on the page. These advancements have increased print longevity dramatically, expanded color gamut and enhanced the ability of inkjet printers to faithfully reproduce very subtle gradations of tone and color.

DYE OR PIGMENT? One of the first decisions to make is whether you’ll go with dye-based or pigment-based inks.

Traditionally, dye inks have been the most commonly used. Dye has the advantage of rich vibrant colors and works well with normal photo papers like gloss and satin surfaces, similar to the prints you’d get with film. Dye inks are more limited in the types of media on which they can print and generally have a shorter archival life, although both of these areas are constantly improving. Along with the ability to deliver more saturated colors, dye inks are typically less expensive than their pigment-based counterparts.

Pigment inks have been the choice for most pros and so are more common in the larger-format printers (17 inches and wider). Pigment inks can be used on a wider variety of media (if it feeds through the printer, you can probably print on it), and they have a greater archival life, with prints lasting as long as 200 years or more. That latter point is important when you’re selling prints of your photos.

BIG, FAST OR PORTABLE? Unless you’re churning out dozens of prints at a time, speed shouldn’t be the deciding factor in your purchase. All of the companies quote output speeds for their printers, but the measurement used differs. Some tout the print speed for a draft-quality print, while others use a more realistic number for a high-quality photo. You’ll normally be printing in the higher quality, and here you can plan about 10 minutes for the typical 8x10 print.

For the photographer who wants to make gallery-quality prints at home, the 13-inch printers featured in this guide are a great compromise between size and cost, letting you print a 13x19 image with ease. This size is quickly becoming the de-facto standard for consumer photo printers—as camera resolutions have increased, so has the desire for larger output.

However, if you’re an event photographer, or want the ability to quickly turn out a couple of prints wherever you are, one of the portable models covered here will be quick and inexpensive.

Portable Printers

Buyer's Guide 2009: Portable Printers

Be the life of the party with quick prints anytime, anywhere

By Jon Sienkiewicz

Making 4x6-inch, photo-quality prints at home and on the go has never been easier. There are several excellent snapshot printers on the market. Most are reasonably priced and easy to use. Many print directly from your camera or memory card, allowing you to make prints without booting up your computer. Some even run on battery power. And all of those that we've included here produce great-looking prints. How to choose, then?

What Size? Two considerations: the size of the printer and the size of the largest print it can make. Some printers, like the Canon Selphy CP760, which measures about 7.9x3.3x5.6 inches, are truly portable. The compact size makes it great to take to a party or family gathering so you can make on-the-spot prints for everyone. Print size for this class of printer seldom exceeds 4x6, but some stretch to 4x8 for panoramas, and many offer other interesting smaller sizes, including wallet-size, stickers and labels.

Inkjet or Dye-Sub? Inkjet printers spray minuscule droplets of ink to create the image. They heat ink that's confined in a tiny cavity to extremely high temperatures until it literally explodes and blasts itself through a small opening in a microscopically thin stream. The volume of ink is measured in picoliters and, naturally, the smaller the volume, the tinier the dot. All else being equal, smaller ink dots mean better prints.

Dye-sublimation printers heat a thin ribbon of ink until the desired color layers fuse with the paper. The process requires strict control, so the paper and ink are always sold as a set, generally a sealed cartridge that delivers a fixed number of prints. You can't use ordinary paper, but you don't have to buy separate ink cartridges either. Generally a bit slower, dye-subs deliver extraordinarily high print quality and unsurpassed archival characteristics.

Cost of Operation Inkjet operation costs less per print, ranging from around 29 cents each up to half a buck. Dye-sub checks in around 39 cents or so and creeps upward toward 65 cents. Some printers use proprietary consumables; be sure to check the availability and cost of the required supplies.

Connectivity PictBridge printer communication protocol allows any PictBridge-compatible printer to work with any PictBridge-compatible camera, regardless of manufacturer. It's one of the few things camera manufacturers have standardized across ranks. The key point is that it provides a means for cameras to communicate with printers without having a computer spliced in between—important if you're looking for portability.

How Long Will Prints Last? The final consideration is permanence. How long an inkjet or a dye-sublimation print will last is the subject of great debate. Some manufacturers are claiming 100-plus-year "archival durability" and have the theoretical research...

Ultimate Photo Printers

Ultimate Photo Printers

Give your images the finish they deserve when you print with these fine-art inkjets

By Jon Sienkiewicz

It may be easy to share photos online, but it’s no substitute for seeing your favorite photographs nicely matted and framed. Even if you’re not planning to display your work publicly, making gallery-quality prints elevates your photography out of the inbox and into the spotlight. The key to fine-art printing at home is in your choice of printer. It’s tempting to settle for the discounted printer offered when you buy a computer, but those printers are typically basic office models, designed for common printing tasks—not for printing top-notch photographs.

Knowing a bit about printer technology will help you understand what, as a photographer, you need from a printer, and the difference in quality you’ll see when you invest in a printer designed for photographers. If we stay within the high-quality photo-printer category, we are, by definition, eliminating machines that are optimized for high-speed office work, snapshot printers and laser printer replacements.

INKJET BASICS Inkjet print images are formed by tiny droplets of ink that are sprayed onto the paper in a very thin stream. The volume of each ink droplet is measured in picoliters: one-trillionth of a liter. It’s an amount that’s imperceptible to the human eye. The tiny droplets are arranged in a very dense pattern that can be measured in terms of dpi (dots per inch). As the number of dots increases, the space between them decreases, and the image looks better.

PIGMENT VS. DYE Some printers use pigment-based inks and others dye-based, and each technology has its advocates. The argument generally runs something like this: Pigment inks are typically more fade-resistant, but deliver less saturated colors. Dye inks are less stable, but produce bold, glossy colors.

Pigment inks will adhere to practically any surface, while dye inks need coated photo papers to perform best. In terms of longevity, dye inks have a typical life of up to 100 years, depending on the paper used and how the print is displayed. Pigment inks can be expected to endure much longer. This may not be a concern if you’re printing for personal use, but if you plan to sell your prints, longevity is an important consideration.

The number of individual ink tanks a printer uses varies among brands and product lines. Photo printers typically have a larger number of individual ink cartridges, adding variations such as light magenta and photo black. These additional inks widen the printer’s palette, enabling it to reproduce subtler variations in tone and hue.

SPEED? Many think printer speed is an overrated consideration, at least as far as the larger-format photo printers are concerned. If your goal is knocking out a slug of 4x6-inch snapshots, you’ll be more keenly concerned about time. But the difference between a two-minute 8x10 and a three-minute 8x10 is less of an i...

HP printers are high quality machines that produce professional looking photographs. Here you’ll find additional information on HP printers as well as local companies and providers that may help you in your search.